Great questions by the way.

Mining isn't profitable for the casual hobbiest. Just like it's not profitable for you, yourself or with 5 buddies, to start a gold mining operation in the Yukon (even if you grow really long weird goatees). Mining requires a lot of equipment, electricity, and time. So unless you have a lot of money to invest in it you'll likely never make any money at it. It's ONLY profitable with huge scale operations, and will continue to become less profitable as the amount of "reward" miners get gets smaller. The next "halfing" is supposed to happen this month, where the "Reward" for mining goes from 50 BTC to 25 BTC.

No, fiat is still preferred over digital currency. And stability is just one of the reasons (perhaps the most important).

Just don't give your fridge your private key and you should be ok!

Haha, read much about the Internet of Things? It's scary stuff at first glance, but then again so was the "horseless carriage" and automobiles when the first started zipping around the streets. Remember that big changes like this happen in very practical ways, which allow us all to get used to the idea much faster.

(I'm not talking about robots taking our money but about allowing intelligence in machines without worry that they'll take our money!)

This could easily be a transaction from Coinbase or another incredibly well known bitcoin-based company.

Sounds like a great idea that Mexico is helping their citizen get their land rights back so they can move back to Mexico.

Are you a fan or an opponent to this?

Ha, and it's hilarious that Cuban's analogy for the companies that suffered greatest or lead the tech bubble crash in 2000 were "Broadcast.com, AOL, and Netscape"...guess which one of those is not like the others? Shameless self promoter, Broadcast.com wasn't on anyone's radar except the people who bought it from them...it sure as hell wasn't at the size of AOL or Netscape!

Cuban also cited kickstarter as part of the problem, but Kickstarter doesn't offer equity to their contributors does it?

What goes up must come down but the fear mongering now just makes me want to buy into it.

I like the system that allows success to breed more success. That system is called Capitalism.

By the way, what Obama plans to do and what he does are two different things. Obama "unveiled a plan" to close Guantanamo Bay Prison, how far did he get with that?

You should read more than the Daily Caller...their articles have a lot catchy headlines but little in the way of supporting facts. I'd love to know what Obama's plan is for "federalizing" state and local police, but the Daily Caller can provide those facts because they drastically pervert the truth.

What else do you read? It's OK to not like Obama...half the country (at least) dislikes any sitting US President at any point in time. But you shouldn't let weak rhetoric called "news" support your dislike, there's plenty of real news to do that.

You can bet that if what you're reading in Daily Caller isn't being reported by Fox News, it's not true.

Wake up, kid!

It's amazing it's taken Republicans so long to try to monetize what's tobacco's wacky uncle.

Weed would make an incredible cash crop, tax the shit out of it for recreational use. No one that went on a shooting rampage, cunning theft, or terrorist attack did so while high on marijuana. People shouldn't be so afraid of it.

Where's the religion reference?

I'm not OK with giving money (tax credits or otherwise) to illegal immigrants. However, I believe that any American citizen that's against immigration has to re-read history and understand that this country was created by immigrants, and should always be respected as such.

I can't find a single article that quotes the dollar amount you're quoting, why is that? Is it because every news source is Liberal, in Obama's pocket, or hiding the truth from us? No, it's because the facts in your article aren't accurate or true.

Here's the truth: http://www.snopes.com/politics/taxes/amnestybonus.asp

That's what coinbase or bitmixer.io do. The group bitcoin payments together. You need to set up a system to receive and pay bitcoins, for people to have accounts, and a general ledger to keep track of balances.

Do you not know how to start a business like that? Or do you not know how to do the coding? Or both?

You can find people out there to help...maybe not on this forum, but they're out there.

I couldn't agree more.

Alt coins are hobbies, bitcoin is for real.

So his wife or partner's website is a bit wrong. He didn't get indicted for owning bitcoin. He got indicted for operating a bitcoin exchange, transfer, or bank type business without a license. Sound like a legit indictment. In the US you gotta have a license to conduct business as a legal business. This isn't an indictment against bitcoin it's an indictment against conducting business without paying for the license to do so.

You may not agree with the fact that government requires license to conduct business, but where we live and which government we operate within is our own choice.

Anyone know how many addresses Satoshi may have (from the beginning), I mean is there any talk about the beginning days beyond the white paper?

That's not at all what the survey says.

The survey says of all forms of payments 3% consider bitcoin safe...that's pretty low. Bitcoin has an awareness and perception problem (we all know that). The fact that it's higher than checks means nothing. Most young people today have never used a check. It's not that people think checks are unsafe but that most people don't use them, they're not convenient.

Save it or spend it on something in at a local pizzeria or cafe that accepts BTC.

Successful mining costs a lot more than what $50 can get you and mining alt coins is a waste. The alternatives to bitcoin are just temporary noise. They'll be long gone.

Your link doesn't work.

So anyone earning a $1 more than the average is upper class income?

Middle class is a range...it has to be a specific amount above and below the average or median household income (depending on which number you subscribe to).